Making It Personal

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When I discovered a piece of wood in my food at the hospital. I guess it’s the safest place to be eating wood fragments. A question I get asked a lot is: “Why do you put so much personal information into the things you write and vlog about?” I’ll share moments with my crying toddler,… keep reading

Stimulus 1.0: A modest JavaScript framework for the HTML you already have

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We write a lot of JavaScript at Basecamp, but we don’t use it to create “JavaScript applications” in the contemporary sense. All our applications have server-side rendered HTML at their core, then add sprinkles of JavaScript to make them sparkle. This is the way of the majestic monolith. Basecamp runs across half a dozen platforms,… keep reading

We decided to kill a feature to figure out how to make it better

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Likes and hearts are all over collaboration and communication software today. Even Basecamp 3 has claps now. On the surface, that seems like a natural step forward: Make it easier to participate, provide encouragement, and create a sense of connection. But scratch that surface and there’s plenty of ambivalence below. I first really noticed my… keep reading

New in Basecamp 3: Decide who gets notified when completing a to-do

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Elevating an invisible feature To-dos in Basecamp are pretty straightforward. At a glance, you can see who’s responsible, when it’s due, and important details you might need to know: Unfortunately, it’s never been clear who will get notified when you complete a to-do. That made it hard to pass the baton to a coworker or… keep reading

“Are you extroverted?”

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I upload a new video every single day to YouTube about business and just getting through life. A vlog as some call it. So also, every day, I walk around talking to a camera lens in the middle of a street or crowded event. It’s weird. It’s weird for a lot of people. So I… keep reading

Hard first or easy first?

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Accountants have FIFO (first in first out) and LIFO (last in first out). Product designers have HFEL (hard first easy later) or EFHL (easy first hard later). No matter the project, there are things you’re more confident about and things you’re less confident about. No brainers, maybe brainers, yes brainers. Assuming you have limited time… keep reading

Growing apart and losing touch is human and healthy

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I quit Facebook back in 2011 for a lot of reasons, but perhaps the most crucial was to rebel against its core mission: Connecting the world. I was over-connected with the world, acquaintances and friends from the past, and I wanted out. Zuckerberg has repeatedly doubled down on the toxic idea that we should only… keep reading

Are you the boutique or are you Target?

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A couple weeks ago we decided to get an artificial Christmas tree. I love real trees, but years of evidence have proven I’m allergic. We think the dog is too. And the cleanup is a nightmare. So we went to Target looking for one. I didn’t want to go to Target, but my wife and… keep reading

Don’t Be Fake

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Hey, are you crushing it? It seems like everyone is constantly crushing it in the business world. But maybe it would be better if we were honest about our flaws, talked like ourselves, and aimed to be genuine instead of super polished. In this episode of the Rework podcast: A Basecamp customer support representative shares… keep reading